


Choke Down the Feeling

by baeconandeggs, violetlightning (tribute)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, BAE2017, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 13:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tribute/pseuds/violetlightning
Summary: It's 1935 and Chanyeol's dealing with a lot more than just an economic crisis.(The one where Chanyeol is broke, starving and unsure of himself until he meets a pink-haired boy named Baekhyun. He's still broke and starving but left unsure of a lot more things than before)





	Choke Down the Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> ahh!! thank you bae mods for everything you guys are amazing!! i'd like to thank my prompter who created this lovely prompt and thank you to the people who are reading this i hope you enjoy!! i love chanyeol and baekhyun and i hope i did them justice!!

_you’re in the eighth grade. you know these things. you know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do long division, and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn’t do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore._

__

_— richard siken, a primer for the small weird loves_

__

Summer, 1935

The rough grain from the pencil digs uncomfortably into the sides of his finger. From his perch on the windowsill he sketches out the things he’s drawn a hundred times before. He draws the group of boys carelessly running through the streets chasing each other, and he draws the old man— one whom he’s never learned the name of, watering the wilting flowers on his porch.

The sweltering heat seems to slow everything down, giving him time to draw every detail from the pebbles being thrown to the small wrinkles on his neighbor's hands. He peers downwards, towards the metal bench among the weeds and the brown grass. If it were any other day with cooler weather he would be sitting there, feeling the breeze against his skin drawing, and reading but the bench would cook his skin if he were to sit there now. Chanyeol slides further into the window, the glass cooling as a wave of dizziness washes over him. 

He tightens his grip on his pencil, the wood slipping through his sweaty fingers, he draws quickly. Lead swishing around the page, lines and shapes quickly forming together. He knows how he is, he could blink and his motivation could dissipate leaving him bored and sweating and unproductive.

Chanyeol’s back aches from being hunched over for however long he’s been, he sneaks a glance at the clock across the room, 4:30. He wipes a bead of sweat from his brow, pushing his black sweaty mop of hair away from his just as sweaty forehead.

He slowly closes his moleskin, careful not to smudge the lead around and drops it down onto the couch below him.

He hops down onto the sofa, ignoring the puff of dust that clouds up from the impact and hops one more time onto the chipped flooring. The wooden floor creaks when you step on certain planks but after months of living in the cramped apartment, he now knows which ones make the least amount of sound.

Raising his arms above his head, curving his back, he grimaces at sounds of popping joints. He’s exhausted, with the heatwave and his small cot he can’t seem to get more than a few hours of sleep a night. The walls are paper thin, and even with his cot pushed up against the opposite wall he still hears the yelling and crying of his neighbours on the other side. They’re not loud every night, sometimes you can’t hear a thing while other nights he feels as if they're in his very room leaving him too scared to move in case the creak of his cot turns their attention towards him, or in fear of stepping on broken shards of glass that aren’t even on his side of the wall.

He wishes he could do something, he knows what goes on over there — him and the entire floor, but he’s never been a fan of confrontation.

Chanyeol steps over the few books scattered over the dusty floorboards and glances up at the mirror frame hung right beside his coat rack, small fragments of glass still litter the floor below from when he smashed it. He unconsciously traces the scars along his knuckles, the rough pads of his fingers rubbing across the discolored skin. He can still hear Sehun screaming at him, Jongin pulling him out the door by his suspenders. He remembers drinking the entire bottle of rum he had hidden under his bed and throwing up the next day. He isn’t sure he wants to remember crying and yelling right back.

A long jaded piece still sticks to the frame, the yellowing bruise on his cheekbone standing prominent against his dark eyes and tanned skin skin. He laughs dryly and unhooks the mirror from the wall. The last piece shatters against the floorboards a few shards jumping across cutting his feet.

He hops over the glass into the kitchen. He frowns, chapped lips cracking. His cabinets, bare as bones, the fridge also empty. He feels around his pockets for some change, coming up empty handed as well. His day keeps getting better. He slips on a new, slightly less stained shirt over his large frame, and takes his moleskin from the couch shaking the dust off the skin. He locks the door behind him but it wouldn’t surprise him if somehow someone broke in and stole something. He laughs at the thought.

♡

The walk to the beach is bearable, there’s a cool breeze, something he didn’t think he’d ever feel again in this heat wave, flitting through the air rustling the leaves of the trees and the loose pages of his notebook. It doesn’t last though and it's gone as soon as it comes leaving Chanyeol a sweaty mess. He kicks along the dirt road, dust flying up with the front of his boot. With a small kick of a stone, the tape covering the hole on the front of his shoe comes unstuck.

“Fuck.” He can’t afford new shoes right now.

His big toe wriggles through the hole in his sock to the hole in his boot. He stops where he is, in the middle of the road and does his best to re-stick the tape.

A shadow blocks him almost as soon as he sits down and when Chanyeol looks up, Sehun is there looming over him, expensive suit and all. There’s a small scratch below his left eye and a dark red bruise on the hollow of his throat. One of these Chanyeol had a hand in dealing, the other makes his stomach churn.

“What are you doing?” Sehun questions, his face schooled cooly, lips pursed. Chanyeol can’t breathe and it’s not from the heat.

He laughs nervously and pushes himself up from the dirt.

“Nothing, nothing. It’s nothing I’m just —Nothing.” He flits around, his lips moving on their own accord, babbling like a schoolgirl who’s just been reprimanded. Sehun doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t even blink.

He sighs in defeat, “My shoe it just..” He lifts his foot from the dirt, duct tape flapping with the movement.

Sehun frowns, “What happened to the shoes I bought you?”

“I—” Chanyeol isn't sure how to finish that sentence because they both know why he’s not wearing the boots he was given.

Sehun interrupts him, “I don’t appreciate you giving away my gifts, especially the expensive ones.” Chanyeol scoffs. The breeze returns, cooling the beads of sweat collecting on both their foreheads, Chanyeol watches a bead of sweat trickle down the side of Sehun’s neck, below the collar of his shirt where his eyes can’t follow. Chanyeol swallows thickly.

“I didn’t give them away.”

Chanyeol has known Sehun since the latter was 12, and he 14.

“I know.”

10 years of being by each others’ side has given them both enough time to understand each other, to know each other inside and out. Chanyeol’s an openbook, at least he thinks he is, he’s never had a secret except the one he keeps telling himself isn’t there. Sehun on the other hand only ever opens up to him, and recently there’s just been white noise. Sehun hasn’t properly talked to him since his birthday and he knows why. It eats away at him, constantly. He never knows when to keep his mouth shut.

“Okay, then I’ll just get going.” Sehun brushes the dust off his suit. He looks him dead in the eyes, a glint of something unreadable there. If it were anything Chanyeol was familiar with he might’ve said it was pity.

Chanyeol clenches his jaw but smiles all the same, “I’ll see you around.” Sehun gives him a half smile, before running off. Chanyeol almost wants to stop him, to say something else, to tell him something else but he can’t.

Chanyeol swallows the acid clawing its way up his throat.

♡

The sun is setting, leaving a soft hue of orange and purples across the sky when he reaches the beach. Chanyeol can’t afford a camera or even the small colored pencils sold at the art store so he settles for sketching the sun setting over the water with his graphite.

It’s almost therapeutic, drawing. He started when he was younger when he couldn’t tell the loud bangs from the neighbours tv from his own parents screaming. He never took it seriously until Sehun bought him his first real sketchbook.

His neighbours used to buy his sketches for a few cents, that's when he knew he wanted to keep doing it. When they told him how good he was it lit this fire inside him. He kept drawing because he kept wanting people to praise him, to acknowledge his efforts. His father did a few times, the days before he died. After that it took him a while to find out why he started in the first place.

He remembers his mother screaming, telling him to get a job at the docks or he wouldn't be allowed back into her house. He can see them now, the men grueling over loads of boxes and carts taxing their bodies for a couple of cents a day. He tried it once, to make his mother happy but the bruises that flowered over his milky skin and the amount of times he couldn’t get out of bed because of his aching muscles stopped him from returning. He’s never been someone with much initiative. He told her he never thought it was worth killing himself to live comfortably. When he said he wanted to be an artist she didn't think twice before kicking him out.

He thinks about the comfortable house he had before and the shoebox he lives in now but he’d pick his own space over his mother any day of the year.

sits himself down in the sand, and listens to the waves crash around one another as he draws. There’s no one around, all the families gone for dinner and the men gone to the dance halls with their girls.

He used to go dancing on double dates with Sehun but he doesn’t think he should be remembering those times, especially not now. He would always drag him out to the dance clubs with new girls every week. It was always the same, Sehun would hit it off and him and his girl would be home free. Chanyeol on the other hand would be sitting at a table with a girl, both of them watching their friends, envious for the same reason. 

Just when he's about to lay down another gust of wind brushes past. His loose sheets of paper catch it and fly freely down the sanded cove.

He jumps up and tries to grab them but he fails, miserably. He ends up chasing his drawings, hoping to catch them before they get carried over the water. 

He doesn't see anyone to ask for help and the wind is too fast for him, even with this long legs. He collapses onto the sand.

The first thing he notices is that he’s short, well shorter than Chanyeol (like most people he meets.) The second thing he notices is his smile. It’s square.

Chanyeol pushes himself up.

“Hi?”

The stranger laughs loudly, it’s heavy and deeper than he would’ve thought. It sounds fake like he’s forcing it out but Chanyeol’s breath catches in his throat all the same.

“Hi! Are these yours? ”

The airs cooled down and Chanyeol feels chilled in his long pants and shirt but this stranger is wearing a sleeveless shirt, bare arms emitting a strange amount of warmth.

The moon is his only source of light now, the sun long gone. They stand idly apart, Chanyeol looking anywhere but at this boy, and the stranger staring holes into Chanyeol’s face.

“Oh! Thank you, I- thank you.”

Still smiling he tilts his head to the side, eyes narrow “Don't worry about it.”

The stranger’s hands are what really catch Chanyeol’s attention. Even in the dark he can see the how slender they are, how beautiful they would look on paper. 

He takes a step forward.

A small mole kisses the edge of the strangers nail bed. His nails are clean, and well taken care of. Chanyeol looks down at his own, chipped and bitten down with who knows how many types of dirt collected under his nails. He's never seen hands like this before— they seem untouched. His hands look as if they were made for someone like the small, strange boy right in front of him. Someone different.

The stranger clears his throat.

Chanyeol squints against the darkness, he doesn't look familiar which is strange since he was sure he knew everyone on this side of the city. He doesn’t look like he lives around here either, not donning either cheap hand-me-down rags or a used suit, but a pair of pants and shirt neatly pressed as if they were just ironed. He looks out of place here.He looks soft, like the Depression hasn’t hit him quite yet. Like the dirty way of living hasn’t hardened his edges. It’s an odd sight but one Chanyeol misses. It reminds him of life Before. Because that’s what it is, his life, a spectrum split down the middle: a Before and an After.

“Sorry. Um, thank you.”

The stranger smiles, “No problem.”

He steps closer to him, leaving a small kiss on the side of his cheek before he leaves.

Chanyeol doesn't know how long he stands there, unmoving.

He walks back to his apartment in an almost comatose state, forgoing his dinner— not like there was anything to eat and turns in early. Without changing out of his sweaty clothing he falls down into his cot and covers himself head to toe with his blanket. It itches, he usually wakes up with patches of irritated skin along his arms and legs. He doesn’t want to sleep because if he sleeps he dreams and right now every time he closes his eyes he sees the light-haired from the beach.

Chanyeol pulls out a piece of paper from his nightstand and switches on the oil lamp. The flames flicker in his small room but give him enough light to see his page. Taking his pencil he sketches freely, no plans or objectives, he just doesn’t want to think right now.

The oil of the lamp drips freely, the wax almost coming to its end when Chanyeol finishes. The muted sounds of cars slowly turning the rubble around their tires as the men around the city leave their families early on for another day at the grind. He can hear the music from the clubs a few streets away and the drunken chatter from men outside his window. He wishes he wasn’t himself. He wants to enjoy life and find love and not be so damn tired all the time.

He's comfortable though, if anything. Doing his thing reading drawing, selling hand drawn portraits for a penny. Then again, he looks down at the silver drawn outline of a barely barely familiar set of hands carefully drawn on the yellowing page and tries to swallow the lup that starts to form in his throat.

Maybe he should give up drawing for a bit.

He folds the sheet, careful not to smudge the lead and places at the back of his bedside drawer behind the scrap paper and littered pencils. he presses the drawer closed tightly and blows out the lamp.

♡

“You should really get some friends.” It’s something Chanyeol hears on a daily basis, something that used to dig itself under his skin but now barely scratches at the surface. Kyungsoo sits beside him in a suit similar to Sehun’s but faded and worn out almost like Kyungsoo looks now. His cheeks aren’t as full as they were when they were younger and that could be the fault of age, but more on the lack of employment and overwhelming fear of starvation and death.

“I like to think you’re my friend.” He muses, flipping open to a fresh page of his sketchbook and sets in on the edge of his knee. Kyungsoo laughs, more of a chuckle than a laugh really but it makes Chanyeol smile all the same.

“Chanyeol what have I said about insulting me?”

He shoves his shoulder against Kyungsoo’s own and ruffles his dark hair, warm from the summer sun. Kyungsoo scowls, pushing Chanyeol away and fixes his hair. He brushes the thick strands of hair against his forehead.

“This is why I’m not your friend Park Chanyeol.” Chanyeol grabs his chest dramatically, groaning in mock pain at Kyungsoo’s words. He’s smiling as he says them as is Chanyeol as he feigns fainting against the scratched up wooden bench.

“Oh, how you wound me Do Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes but before Chanyeol can get in another joke his expression hardens. 

“Your mom came by my place last night, says she’s worried about you. She wants to set you up with a nice girl.” 

He isn’t looking at Chanyeol anymore instead kicks at the rocks beneath his feet as his voice become uncertain. Chanyeol sits up, hand on the back of his neck, nails digging in slightly at the nape. 

“Yeah?” Chanyeol ignores his racing heart. “Well tell her I’m broke and I’m not interested.”

“We’re all broke Chanyeol. It’s nothing new” Kyungsoo counters, “anyway when was the last time you even went out with a girl?”

Chanyeol huffs nervously, “I’m not quite sure, maybe a few months ago?

“You should give it another shot, after the whole Sehun-” He looks up with wide eyes realising what he just said. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I didn't mean to-”

They sit in silence after that, Chanyeol sits there quietly watching Kyungsoo fiddle with his worn out watch from the corner of his eye. His black hair is gelled back of his forehead, he looks good. _Really good_. Chanyeol wants to tell him so, bu he doesn't. He can see Kyungsoo looking at him as well. They’re acting as if they just met but they’ve known each other for so long. He doesn’t want things to be like this.

“I thought you had a date.” Is all he says.

Kyungsoo’s nods and when he walks away, it leaves Chanyeol with a bad taste in his mouth.

♡

When he first started out drawing he would just sketch small things around his room- his bed, the pile of books by his radio but after a while he grew restless and started drawing plants, and buildings. Now he sits on his bench and draw people, sometimes he draws people for money but most often not.

He needs the money, you’d think he’d be knocking down doors to find a job. Except he isn’t, because he's the dumbest person he knows.

He draws, and starves and draws some more hoping the scratches of lead on paper will distract him- it usually does.

Chanyeol stretches out his arms before settling down. He’s not picky, he’ll draw what he sees and end up satisfied with the end product.

He’s heard other artists like himself talk about it, the need to draw, a bubbling feeling that overwhelms one's self when they see something that they have to commit to memory, he wants that, not more than anything but enough that it leaves him with a dull ache in his chest after finishing another bland piece. He wants the itch in his fingers.

He wants to want something so bad it hurts.

He always finishes a drawing, he takes his time with each line and shade to make his sketch a perfect replica of whatever his model is, it works out most of the time but sometimes when he can’t finish a drawing for whatever reason it nips away at him until he takes what he remembers and finishes it.

He flips through the pages, each drawing like a memory, he finds one of his earlier works, a small dog sleeping underneath one of the many trees in the nearby park.The shading is off and the perception is far from good but he still feels that this drawing and the few before it are some of his best works. He wasn’t drawing to finish the piece, he was drawing because he wanted to because there was an opportunity and he grasped it.

Chanyeol brushes his finger across the sheet, skin catching on the ridges of the moleskine. He thumbs through a couple more pages without really looking on them, he flips faster each sketch molding into the last until the flipping pages conjures up a blob of grey. His finger slips across the pages and the paper splits open his thumb in seconds.

“Fuck!”

The crimson blood catches onto the edges of a few pages before he jerks it away and shoves the bloody thumb into his mouth. The taste of iron takes over quickly and he grimaces at the tang it leaves. Chanyeol uses his free hand to search his pockets for a rag but comes up empty.

“Are you alright?”

Chanyeol turns his head and comes face to face with a concerned face. A concerned face with light pink hair.

“Just a paper cut, I’ll be okay.” Is what he tries to say, but with his thumb still stuck it his mouth it comes out all muffled and mumbly.

The stranger squints his eyes up trying to decipher Chanyeol’s statement. He quickly realizes he hasn’t been understood and takes his thumb out from his mouth.

He laughs, “I’m sorry, I said it’s just a papercut.” He wiggles his thumb to show him the deep red cut across his finger.

The stranger raises his brows in understanding then smiles. It softens his entire face, his worried wrinkles fading away. His eyes seemed to sparkle with the curl of his lips. He hasn’t even realized he’s been staring until the stranger squirms a bit in his shoes. Although he seems uncomfortable, Chanyeol notices this man hasn’t broken eye contact with him once.

“Oh! Sorry- that’s so rude of me, I-” Chanyeol turns his head towards the dirt road ahead of him.

The stranger walks over and plops down on the bench right beside Chanyeol and picks up his legs so he’s sitting cross legged.

“What’s your name?”

Chanyeol blinks. He was expecting to get chewed out for staring at him.

“My name?”

The stranger rests his head on his hand, looking expectantly at him, eyes twinkling in the sunlight.

“I guess it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me, I’ll just go.” He straightens his legs out preparing to get up and walk away. Chanyeol doesn’t think he wants that.

“It’s Park Chanyeol.”

The stranger raises an eyebrow at him, but pulls his legs back in. He lifts a hand towards him.

“Hi Park Chanyeol, I’m Baekhyun.”

Chanyeol smiles, not out of respect or necessity but just because he can’t stop himself. “So, Baekhyun where are you from?”

Baekhyun brushes his fading pink hair out from around his eyes, it’s longer than most hair he’s seen. “Around.”

He wants to be offended by that but he strangely isn’t. He reaches his hand out towards Baekhyun, who quickly grabs He shakes Baekhyun’s hand with an excited vigor and tries to shake the churning in his stomach. He looks down at their joined hands and spots a small mole on Baekhyun’s hand. It’s the same mole that’s been haunting his dream for the past few nights. He looks quickly between the mole and Baekhyun’s face, that grows confused with every glance.

“You!” Chanyeol shrieks, it’s loud and his voice cracks slightly in the middle. He scrambles up from the bench, bloody thumb forgotten and sketchbook in the dirt.

Baekhyun slowly stands up, “Me?”

“You’re the one from the beach the other day! You kissed me!”

Chanyeol surveys the area around them, not many are around just a small cluster of street kids kicking over milk bottles and trash cans. He leans in close.

“Are you queer?”

Baekhyun looks up at him with such intensity in his eyes he can’t help but stagger backwards.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol whispers, even though they’re almost toe to toe he feels the need to after that outburst. “I just- you looked familiar and I couldn’t place it, until I saw your mole. It’s cute.”

Chanyeol’s eyes widen after he realises what he just said and Baekhyun’s eyes squint.

Chanyeol stumbles a bit, “I mean it's um, it's not cute it's, it's nice.” He feels his face heating up.

Baekhyun tries to hide a laugh but fails miserably. His hand comes up quickly to stop the snort that leaves his nose.

He looks mortified but Chanyeol finds himself laughing too.

He picks up his discarded book and sits back down on the bench. His thumb has stopped bleeding but the cut across his skin still throbs. He presses one of his nails into the abrasion.

Baekhyun sits down aswell and they sit in an almost uncomfortable silence.

“Why though?” Chanyeol looks over at him out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t know why he wants to know. “Why did you kiss me?”

Baekhyun shrugs his shoulders, “I wanted to.”

Chanyeol’s mouth gapes open, eyebrows raised. “And you're sure you're not queer?”

Baekhyun stills for a moment and side-eyes him, leaving Chanyeol to drop the subject.

”Want to get some ice cream?”

They’re in the middle of an economic crisis and Chanyeol doesn’t have two pennies to rub together but the small twinkle in Baekhyun’s eyes makes it hard to say no.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol grins “Let’s go.”

He spends that night outside on his fire escape sketching a small hand curled around a vanilla cone and erases the small mole on the left thumb to make himself feel better.

♡

Baekhyun shows up the next day and the next and soon Baekhyun becomes an integral part of his daily routine. 

His mother never let him have friends except for Sehun and Kyungsoo. They came from money, “they're good for you” she would say, and he listened because he was a good kid. He wasn't allowed a lot of things growing up./p>

It wasn't until he was 17 that he decided to be his own person.

Now, Baekhyun is a friend someone who let into his life, a decision he made on his own and it feels good to have something that's his and not his mother’s.

A week later Baekhyun walks over smiling with two apples in hand. Chanyeol gasps at the sight, he can’t remember the last time he had a piece of fruit. He grabs at it like a child in a candy store and just stares at it.

Baekhyun laughs, “You know you can eat it right?”

He hesitates just a bit, “Where did you get this?” His eyes widen and he whispers, “Did you steal it?”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes and twirls his apple around his hands. He then proceeds to take a bite of his own, juice slipping down over his mouth and over his fingers, leaving them shiny. Chanyeol forgets all about his own apple and finds himself staring at the liquid dripping from his fingers. He’s been staring at Baekhyun a lot lately.

He hears Baekhyun take another bite, he’s smiling and his eyes are crinkled up like little crescents. Chanyeol feels the warmth inside him spread across his chest, if Baekhyun keeps coming around it will probably be a regular feeling but he doesn’t dwell on it. He smiles back but puts the apple down on the bench beside him and instead pulls out his sketchbook.

Baekhyun leans forward, “What’s that?” His words muffled by the chewed up fruit in his mouth. He tilts his head like a puppy and it makes Chanyeol’s chest feel warm. 

Chanyeol resists the urge to tuck the book back under his leg, “It’s my sketchbook.” He hopes to God that Baekhyun doesn’t ask-

“Can I see?”

He picks at the peeling leather. He doesn’t let people see his drawings, he doesn't let people _in_ like that it’s all too personal for him. He coughs and tries to find a nice way to say _not a chance in hell._

“Not today,” he watches Baekhyun’s face fall, “It’s not you or anything like that,” he quickly says “It’s just that I’ve never shown anyone my work before.”

Baekhyun still frowns but nods in understanding and although they just met it seems out of character. Baekhyun usually pushes him a bit more until he’s almost angry. This Baekhyun who just _nods_ throws him for a loop.

It’s invigorating though, the process of learning things about someone new he hasn’t done this in some time but he craves it. He loves learning the small details of a person, their faults and little details that make them who they are.

To him, right now, Baekhyun is the perfect person, someone who’s funny and happy and actually wants to be around him. He’s just met him and yet he feels as if he’s known him his entire life. 

It’s a few days later, when they’re laying on the roof of Chanyeol’s apartment, watching the stars when Baekhyun looks over at him and says:

“Do you ever get the feeling that we’ve known each other our whole lives?”

Chanyeol stops thinking about certain things around Baekhyun after that.

♡

On days where dogs pant and the flowers wilt Chanyeol and Baekhyun spend their days down by the beach or in one of the small diners across town. Although the tables allow him a flat surface to draw he finds he favours the beach much more.

He likes to draw Baekhyun when they’re together, it’s not easy to hide it because Baekhyun’s one of the most nosey people he’s had the pleasure of befriending but he thinks he’s doing a pretty good job. Sometimes he thinks Baekhyun knows but he doesn't want to bring it up, Baekhyun never brings it up either, so he leaves it.

He finds himself drawing his hands more than anything else.

He tries to ignore them at first. They’re just hands. They’re Baekhyun’s hands and they’re just like everybody else’s, except they're not. Baekhyun’s hands are smaller than Chanyeol’s and soft where his are rough. They’re pale and freckled while Chanyeol’s are tanned and veiny.

And the mole.

He has moles, Kyungsoo has moles, everyone in the entire world has a mole (probably) and he couldn’t care less about of them, but he still finds himself not sleeping because he’s too busy trying to perfect a drawing of delicate fingers. He soon finds his books littered with drawings of them, there’s a few of his face, his smile and him laughing and they make his chest warm with something he doesn’t quite understand but when he thinks about his hands and how they would fit in his or how they feel on his skin he gets warm in a way he understands all too well.

He hates how Baekhyun makes him feel so confused and uncomfortable in his body. He doesn’t understand how he’s feeling or what he’s thinking about half the time. He wants Baekhyun to like him so he tries so hard to bury himself and show him a better version. He hopes it’s working, and for the most part it is. Baekhyun and him spend almost everyday together. There’s the odd day where Baekhyun doesn’t show up and those are the days Chanyeol spends inside his own thoughts wondering why he’s so invested in this guy he’s known for a month.

♡

6:30 am

That’s what time Chanyeol wakes up to a persistent knocking on his front door. He groans and flops back onto his side, pulling his pillow over his ears to drown out the sound.

He groans again but this time he drags himself off his bed and to the front door. He opens it quickly, prepared to give a long winded speech to whoever's on the other side about appropriate times to knock on doors, but no one's there.

Chanyeol peeks his head out and looks down the hall. He sees Baekhyun chatting it up with his neighbour, an elderly woman named Mrs.Rose. He turns around and waves excitedly at Chanyeol who finds himself waving back.

“-Always looking at you the way he should be looking at dames. Be careful.” Mrs.Rose takes the small bag of groceries from Baekhyun and says goodbye. 

“I'll try my very best.”

Baekhyun turns around and jumps back a bit. “You scared me.” He whines, swatting Chanyeol on the shoulder.

Then Baekhyun's eyes widen. “You didn't hear what she said right?” He looks uneasy..

Chanyeol wrinkles his forehead. “No? Why? What'd she say?”

“Nothing. She didn't say anything.”

Chanyeol knows she said something, he heard her voice but if all he had to go off was Baekhyun denying it ever happened he probably would’ve believed him.

Chanyeol gives him a look but drops it. Baekhyun smiles.

Though it’s almost the middle of summer the heat is slowly dying down. No longer is he waking up covered in sweat or cooking his skin on the metal bench. He’s glad for it though, he has more energy than he did before. They stroll down a different street, where men hang on the corners of buildings and whistle as you walk by. He pulls his jacket closer.

Baekhyun doesn’t look too worried though. He never looks worried now that Chanyeol thinks about it. Baekhyun has been nothing but positive the entire time he’s known him. It’s strange and discomforting but it’s Baekhyun so it oddly makes sense.

“Why do you like drawing so much?”

Chanyeol turns to see Baekhyun holding his sketchbook that was just in his back pocket. He hasn’t opened it, the tie still secured around the opening but he’s holding it like he wants to. It looks bigger in his tiny hands, his fingers barely reaching all the way around. A surge of panic spiks through him and he lunges for the book but Baekhyun, being smaller and for nimble ducks out of the way leaving Chanyeol chasing dirt.

He catches himself before he face plants and steadies himself before turning back towards Baekhyun- who’s now immersed in what seems to be a serious conversation with a shop keeper. 

When he reaches his side the conversation comes to a null, the shop owner slipping back inside and Baekhyun smiling up at Chanyeol with his big square smile.

“Baekhyun.” It’s whiney and high pitched and if he were with anyone else, anywhere else he would be embarrassed but Baekhyun just laughs.

Chanyeol reaches out again, he wriggles his fingers like a child but eventually Baekhyun hands back the book. Their fingers brush against each other when Chanyeol greedily snatches back his drawings, it’s subtle, just a small brush against Baekhyun’s knuckles but it’s too much at the same time. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the blush that fights its way to his cheeks so he doesn’t but when he snaps his eyes up to Baekhyun’s he sees spots of red flush across his face as well, except Baekhyun looks like has a something to say.

And for the first time he doesn’t.

♡

A week later they find themselves at the library, books stacked on books and small couches lining the walls and Baekhyun sitting at a table tongue sticking out his lips in concentration as he tries, very hard to draw. He’s cute, and now Chanyeol has no trouble using that word to describe him.

It’s been almost an hour and when Chanyeol peeks over his book at Baekhyun’s paper all he sees are eraser shavings. He squints, trying to make out a shape, or a line but then Baekhyun looks up and covers his paper with his free arm.

“Don’t look.”

Chanyeol sighs, “How am I supposed to help you if you won’t let me see?”

He had begged Chanyeol to show him the basics of drawing and he was more than happy to help but when Baekhyun had asked him about his inspiration he didn’t answer but simply sat across from him and watched.

“You’re not helping me! You’re reading!” He points accusingly at the small book of poetry in Chanyeol’s hands. “Now let me finish my masterpiece in complete silence Park Chanyeol or I will shove this pencil up your nose.”

Chanyeol snorts. “Yeah, okay punk do your worst.” He scrunches up a blank piece of paper and throws it at Baekhyun landing right on the top of his head where he’s leaned over to protect his drawing.

Baekhyun gives him a short glare but no retort, leaving Chanyeol on edge of the impending attack from Baekhyun’s side of the table.

“Do you miss her?”

It’s not a paper to the head or a spit ball and luckily not a pencil up the nose. He doesn’t fight physically like Chanyeol but over the past month he can tell Baekhyun prefers mind games, emotional warfare to anything else.

Chanyeol puts down his book. “Who?”

Baekhyun sets down his own pencil and rolls it back and forth across the blank piece of paper in front of him. “You know. The girl you miss.”

“I don’t miss anyone.”

Baekhyun knocks his head down on the desk and makes a sound akin to dying, a throaty sound almost like an _are you serious?_ Chanyeol remains seated on the small chair. He looks around to make sure no one heard him, not even a librarian can be seen around the desolate building. 

Baekhyun sits up and leans over the table until he’s inches from Chanyeol’s face, eyes squinted.

“Your left eye twitches when you lie Park Chanyeol. I know you. You can’t hide anything from me.”

Chanyeol thinks he’s been doing a pretty good job so far.

“Fine. I do miss someone but It’s not a girl. It’s just a friend I haven’t talked to in a while that’s all,” He scratches at the scab on his wrist. “How do you know I miss him.”

“Well,” Baekhyun pops his lips over the last syllable “When you say something funny you look like you want to tell someone who isn’t me or sometimes when you look at me it looks like you’re looking for someone else.” This close he can see Baekhyun's eyes flicker between curious and sad. It makes him feel full of rusty metal, something he hasn’t felt since he left home.

_Oh, Baekhyun._

“I don’t- I’m not looking for anyone else Baekhyun, don’t be ridiculous you’re my only friend.”

Baekhyun slowly slides back into his seat a safe distance away and flicks he pencil back and forth across his unfinished drawing.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

_No. He doesn’t want to talk about it. If he talks about it makes it real, it would make Chanyeol have to come face to face with the fact that he pushed his best friend away._

“There’s not much to tell really, I went to party and I drank too much and told him something I’d been keeping to myself for a few years,” He coughs, “he didn't like what I had to say he said some things back, I said some more things and he socked me in the face.”

He gestures to the scratch under his eye where a bruise used to be. It doesn’t necessarily hurt anymore but when he thinks about what happened he can still feel Sehun’s knuckles on his skin.

Baekhyun sits up and pulls himself back across the table. He places his hands- his hands on the sides of Chanyeol’s face. They’re so close, Chanyeol can hear the blood rushing in his ears. Baekhyun runs his thumb softly across the scratch, eliciting goose bumps across Chanyeol’s body.

“Well, I'm sure you didn't deserve it.”

Chanyeol turns away from Baekhyun's grasp. “I try to tell myself that.”

He likes to think he deserved it, that Sehun was just doing what he thought he needed to. He hates himself for blabbing, he kept it inside for years, he could've done it for the rest of his life. Except he couldn't because he made him sick and it hurt him and it didn't matter anymore. Not really. 

♡

When he was 17 he ran away from home. He packed a small bag with hidden comics and a few snacks and hit the road all by himself. He didn't know what he was doing, but with the few cents he scraped up from around the house he bought himself a streetcar ticket downtown.

Granted he only lasted a measly couple of hours before he went to the police station and asked them to call his mom, those few hours of pure independence was all Chanyeol needed to really understand the life he wanted.

When his mother picked him up she doesn't say a word. She didn't ask why he left or what he did for those hours and he doesn't tell.

He thinks about it, his secret, from time to time when he likes to remind himself of certain things.

♡

“This is stupid. You’re stupid.” Chanyeol groans. It’s August, and Chanyeol is being dragged by the wrist to party he doesn’t want to attend.

“Stop being a baby Park Chanyeol, this’ll be good for you. It can’t be healthy spending all your free time with me can it?” Baekhyun is ahead of him, pink hair gelled down. “Come on big guy, Kyungsoo asked me to bring you so I’m bringing you,” he stops, “and don’t embarrass me.”

“Baek. These are _my_ friends, _you_ don't embarrass _me_.” The door swings open as a group of girls giggle their way out he smiles at them as they scurry past causing them to giggle even more. Baekhyun rolls his eyes and grabs him again by the wrist.

“You’re insufferable.”

“I know.”

Baekhyun doesn’t hear him though, he’s long gone through the crowds of people. He tries to follow the bright mop of hair but once he gets near the back of the room he loses him.

The hall is one he’s been to before, he’s been on a few double dates here sitting in the exact seat he can see Sehun sitting in now. He can see Jongin beside him, they aren’t touching, they aren’t entirely stupid but even from across the room he can see how they look each other. How he didn’t notice it before he doesn’t know.

He turns towards the bar and finds Baekhyun talking to Kyungsoo. It’s startling- seeing them together. His old life and his new one colliding, it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

“Hey Soo! Baekhyun!”

He calls out again but he isn’t heard. The live band is playing something upbeat and loud so it’s no surprise. When he gets closer he can see Baekhyun looks distressed, upset even and Kyungsoo is comforting him? Why didn’t Baekhyun tell him he was upset?

He rushes over to his side, surprising only Kyungsoo. Baekhyun must have seen him coming because when he gets there he doesn’t look upset, he’s smiling and laughing at something Kyungsoo probably didn't say.

“Baekhyun? Are you okay?” 

He watches Baekhyun flick Kyungsoo on the wrist.

Kyungsoo clears his throat, “It’s nothing Chanyeol, I was just meeting Baekhyun. Glad to see you've been making friends.”

Baekhyun laughs again. “Kyungsoo was just telling me about how you got stuck in his fence, care to weigh in?”

“I don’t- Are you sure you’re okay because over there I thought you looked-”

“I’m fine, but can we find someplace quiet? I need to talk to you.”

“Of course, yeah, but are you sure you’re okay?” Baekhyun rolls his eyes but nods to assure him.

They both look around for an empty spot, he spots the back exit and nudges Baekhyun to show him as well.

Baekhyun looks nervous as they cross the room, he won’t look at Chanyeol he hasn’t really looked at him all night. That’s usually Chanyeol's way of avoiding things. Now that he thinks about it, Baekhyun’s been adding strange all week. Little things, things he probably thought Chanyeol wouldn’t notice, like less touching and less snarky comments. He’s been less stubborn, which is a win but not when something's clearly bothering him.

“Chanyeol.” He stops in his tracks.

This can’t be happening, not right now. He shuts his eyes, squeezing them tight, maybe hoping he’ll explode or something close to that so he doesn’t have to do this _right now_

When he turns around Sehun is standing behind him, Jongin on his side. They look good together, they fit well. It makes Chanyeol’s skin crawl.

He can feel Baekhyun tugging on his sleeve trying to pull him away but he can’t move, He can’t even hear the music anymore all there is is a slight buzzing in his head getting louder with every passing second.

Sehun says something but he doesn’t hear, he watches his lips wrap around the syllables but he can’t match them to anything he thinks he would say. Baekhyun is saying something aswell, he’s guessing it’s not to him though with the face of utter offense forming itself on Sehun’s face.

It’s only when he watches Jongin pull Sehun away for the second time, that he shakes himself back into reality.

Baekhyun is standing beside him red-faced and visibly irritated.

He turns towards him gripping him by the shoulders, “Wh- What did you do?”

Baekhyun doesn’t answer but instead rips away from Chanyeol’s grip and walks back towards Kyungsoo. “Baekhyun! What did you say to him?”

He grabs him one more time turning him to face him and instead of the furious Baekhyun he was just met with, Baekhyun looks upset.

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

Chanyeol doesn’t want Sehun to hate him and he doesn’t need Baekhyun’s help. He tells him as much.

“Fuck you.” He spits but it doesn’t come out bitter, just tired.

He follows Baekhyun outside but doesn't do anything else, he doesn't stop him or talk to him he just watches him go.

He sees Sehun again and this time he approaches him. “I don't know what he said but—”

Sehun raises an eyebrow, “Don't worry about it. He's just, looking out for you. I understand.”

Chanyeol squints his eyes to see if he's lying but like all other times he can't tell.

“Um, okay. Well, while I'm here. I- I’m sorry about what happened, I think we both said some things we didn't mean and um, yeah. I’m sorry.”

He doesn't wait for Sehun to answer, he just turns and walks back inside.

♡

A few days go by without a sign of Baekhyun. He doesn't show up on the bench or break into his room at early hours of the morning. Chanyeol feels like someone's ripped out his wiring, he doesn't know what to do. Ever since he came along Baekhyun's been calling the shots and he kind of just followed him.

Now Chanyeol sits on the bench alone, he traces along his most recent drawing of Baekhyun, it's from the library. Baekhyun hunched over his secret sketch He looked different when he was like that, younger, innocent. Chanyeol wishes he knew that Baekhyun.

He should find him, apologize for being a jerk, but we won't, because he's a coward.

♡

He falls asleep on the floor beside his bed, his clothes and shoes still on. He couldn't find the energy to pull himself up onto the cot so he styled for the hardwood.

There's a soft tapping coming from somewhere, at first it sounds far away but when it becomes louder he realizes it's coming from the window.

He stands up and waits for the dizziness to subside. There are still spots of black in his vision when he opens the window to find Baekhyun sitting on his fire escape.

“Baekhyun?”

“I haven't seen you in almost a week, what are you doing?”

Baekhyun just slips through the window until he's standing right in front of Chanyeol.

He's not speaking but he's staring, right at Chanyeol. It's intense, something he's never seen in Baekhyun’s eyes before. It makes him feel exposed.

Baekhyun lifts his arm, his hand brushing the bed head off of Chanyeol’s forehead. His fingers trail along his skin from his face down to wrist. It sends chills down his spine.

“Chanyeol, I need you to do something for me.” His voice is hoarse and dried out like he'd been crying but he can't see him well enough to tell.

He looks down at Baekhyun, no hesitation and nods, “Yeah of course. Anything.” He hadn't meant for it to sound like that, except he did. He would do anything for Baekhyun.

“I need you to kiss me.”

Time stops. The world stops spinning on its axis and Chanyeol feels his stomach fall to the ground.

He takes a step backwards, “Baekhyun?”

A car drives by and it lights up his whole apartment. Baekhyun's eyes are watering and there's a bruise across his left cheek.

Chanyeol grips Baekhyun's face, turning the bruise towards himself. “Baekhyun? What happened?”

Baekhyun shakes Chanyeol's hands away, “Please, Chanyeol.” He looks up at him again, this time a tear falls down his cheek right over the discoloured skin.

His voice cracks like there's a lump in his throat. He looks so sad it breaks Chanyeol's heart.

“Yeah. Yes. Okay. Anything.”

He slides his hands into Baekhyun’s hair, they're shaking but he ignores it. He leans in closer. From this distance he can see the moles littering his face, he can count the lashes on Baekhyun's closed eyes. He wants to tell him to open them but he doesn't.

He takes a breath. 

Chanyeol presses his lips against Baekhyun’s. His lips are soft against Chanyeol's chapped ones. Baekhyun lets out a soft gasp when Chanyeol presses, and brings his hands up to cup Chanyeol's cheeks. He can feel them shaking like his own. Chanyeol licks along Baekhyun’s bottom lip. Baekhyun pulls away. 

“Sorry, I’m sorr-”

Baekhyun tries to step back but he trips on nothing. Chanyeol reaches out with both arms and catches him.

He slides his thumb across Baekhyun's cheek, wiping the tears from his face. He still hasn't opened his eyes.

“Baekhyun?”

He shakes his head. “No.” He keeps his eyes shut right but tears still trickle down. 

He keeps chanting no’s until his words are covered with heavy sobs.

Chanyeol catches him before his knees buckle, he buries his face in Chanyeol's neck his tears itching Chanyeol's skin. He stands still, he's never seen Baekhyun cry before so this is uncharted territory.

To test the waters he brushes Baekhyun's hair with his fingers, “It's okay Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun sobs harder at that, fingers coming up and digging themselves into his chest. It stings where Baekhyun's nails pierce the skin but right now with Baekhyun breaking down in his arms he can't seem to care.

“Come here.”

He carefully walks him towards the bed, pulls down the blanket and lays him down. He pulls the blanket up to his chin. He's still crying but the sobs have stopped, just silent tears glistening across his face.

“I’m sorry” Baekhyun whispers. It's wet and broken his breathing still not under control.

From where Chanyeol’s sleeping on the floor Chanyeol turns away from the bed to face the wall trying to still his shaking fingers.

Chanyeol groans loudly and tries to pull his blanket over himself. He reaches down but his hands find nothing. He makes a confused noise in the back of his throat, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Then he remembers. The crying, Baekhyun crying. The bruise, the kiss. He feels his chest tighten at the thought. He kissed Baekhyun and more at the thought that he's pretty sure it changed everything.

They should talk about this. This thing that happened, he doesn't want to, like most things he's fine bottling it up but this subject isn't just uncomfortable, it's dangerous and Chanyeol’s life plans don't involve prison.

He looks up at his cot expecting to find a sleeping Baekhyun but finds it empty, blanket folded and placed on his dingy pillow.

Baekhyun isn't in his room, he's not in the bathroom or the kitchen. He's panicking and he knows it. He throws open the door, it's pouring rain and the sky is clouded a dark grey but he doesn't think twice about running out onto the street.

“Baekhyun?”

He doesn't know why he's even doing this, if Baekhyun left it was probably hours ago and he's probably long home now.

His chest feels heavy and the rain continues hailing down on him. The drops hit him like bullets leaving small red spots along his arms.

He continues walking. The windows of the stores black along with every other light on the block. He can’t see much, just the small stretch of sidewalk ahead of him. He tries to step of a small carton of milk bottles but slips.

He falls forward onto the concrete, hands coming up to protect his face. He lies there for a couple of minutes, face down on the sidewalk pants ripped at the knees and hands probably bleeding. He’s almost sure they are, they feel cold. He doesn’t want to move, he wants to die here. He slowly turns over, bones and muscles aching from the impact and faces the sky. He can’t remember the last time he looked up at the night sky- probably before his father died. Usually it soothes him, the bright lights letting him know it’ll be okay but with an sore shin and an aching chest that he can’t quite figure out, it scares him and makes him feel more alone than ever.

He eventually stands up, ignoring the dull pain in his legs or the throbbing from his hands and makes it home. He unlocks the door but doesn’t bother turning on the light. He slinks towards the bathroom head hanging and turns the faucet on. He wants hot water, boiling, steaming water so he can melt his skin off but that would require him to boil it on the stove and he just doesn’t think he can do that right now.

He settles for freezing and shoves his hands under the running water, it numbs his fingers instantly he can’t feel the pain of his ripped skin anymore. He feels empty, like everything's been drained out of him. He rests his head against the small mirror hanging above the sink. It’s cool against his skin that is still hot to the touch. He grabs the towel from behind the door and dries his hair careful not to irritate his hands too bad.

He can still feel Baekhyun’s breath on his face, his fingers carding through his hair. His lips felt so soft against his own. Everything is hitting him hard. He’d kissed Baekhyun for no other reason than Baekhyun wanted him to.

He wants to scream but everything feels like his throat's been rubbed raw.

When Baekhyun had asked him for something he had said “anything” and had meant it.

He stands up. It’s still pitch black out, he can’t even see his own hands in front of him.

He’d do anything for Baekhyun.

He runs his wet hands over his face, he needs some fresh air or some water or maybe a few drinks. He can’t stop his head from spinning. He steps into his bedroom, ready to black out for a few hours, or days but stops halfway when a piece of paper stick to the bottom of his wet foot.

He leans down and picks up the loose sheet, ignoring the tens of other sheets littering his floor.

He finds a drawing of an old woman living under the bridge by the beach. It’s a brilliant drawing, the only thing wrong is it’s not finished. He flips it over.

It’s Baekhyun. He’s smiling, his eyes are crinkled and his teeth bared.He can’t remember what they were laughing about but he remembers Baekhyun looking so happy he couldn’t help but draw it. His heart stops.

He quickly searches for the matches, throwing open the small drawer beside his cot. He finds the small box but struggles to light it. Finally a flame brightens the room and he lights the lamp.

He doesn’t know why he’s doing this, he knows whatever he comes to realise will probably hurt him. 

He collects all the drawings that he’s discarded around his room,and his pair of moleskins, even the crumples ones out of the corner of his room. He pushes his bed across the room to give himself a bit more room and gets to work. His fingers shake as he lays them all out, it’s nerve wracking seeing all his trashed drawings staring back at him, he almost wants to apologize to them.

Before he met Baekhyun he was so set on routine, he did everything the same way. He finished every drawing. Something changed when Baekhyun came into his life and it isn’t just the ghost of his lips on Chanyeol’s neck.

He turns over every drawing that isn’t of his friend, finding Baekhyun or Baekhyun’s hands looking back at him. There are only a few to turn- the only bunch of photos are Baekhyun. Both sides.

“What the fuck.”

He runs a sweaty hand through his hair, his hands are shaking and his mind is reeling. Everything is spinning so fast he falls against the wall.

“Oh my god..” He repeats it until the words lose their meaning and all feels are his lips going numb.

Everything he’s drawn for the past few months has been Baekhyun. Baekhyun's smile, Baekhyun laughing or running or just being. There are so many of his hands. Those hands that he can feel running across chest at the library, digging into his arm at the beach. Everything is Baekhyun. _Baekhyun, Baekhyun, Baekhyun_.

♡

He feels hollow.

He doesn’t know how it’s supposed to feel when you realize you’re in love but he never imagined it’d be like this.

Sehun had been different, he had years to bury those feelings he took his time trying to understand, to change them but he couldn’t. He was never really sure about them in the first place, he enjoyed his company and he made him feel safe which what he thought love was. This aching inside him isn’t what he wants but maybe its what he deserves, maybe it's him finally getting what he deserves.

He wakes up groggy and sore. His body aches and his hands feel as if they’ve been rubbed raw. His mind is blank, but not in a way he can’t remember what happend more of a everything’s gone except this one thought. It bounces back and forth across his skull pounding from in inside out.

He rushes for the bathroom acids climbing his throat, barely making it to the toilet before he throws up. His throat already raw from crying feels as if it’s been stripped away from his skin.

He can’t help the sobs being ripped from his throat. Everything hurts, and yet it doesn’t hurt enough. He deserves it to hurt more. He shouldn't have kissed Baekhyun, he was upset and delirious he couldn't have really wanted that. He shouldn't have told Sehun how he felt. Everything goes wrong when he opens up. He should just listen to his mother, nothing ever went wrong when she was in charge.

He should find Baekhyun and apologize. Maybe tell him they shouldn't be friends anymore. He entertains the thought that Baekhyun would hate him. He wants Baekhyun to hate him. It’d make this a lot easier, whatever “this” was.

He’s happy when he’s with Baekhyun. He wasn't sure what he was feeling at the time but now he can honestly say it was pure unadulterated happiness. Something he hasn't felt in a long time.

But it's wrong. His mother raised him to know it was wrong. A boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut. Which of course he didn't do, but he's hollowed out and bitter and it doesn't matter anymore. He's dead anyway, he's scared Baekhyun off.

He spends the day locked in his room.

He’s hyperaware of every sound that he hears. He jumps when the door from the room beside his slams shut or when a couple of boys start screaming in the streets. His whole body is sore from staying tensed up in the same spot for hours but he’s too afraid to move.

He almost has a heart attack when a few loud knocks come from his front door.

♡

Baekhyun sits on the couch with his back straight. His hair is unkept, loose strands sticking up in odd places. He wants to reach over and pat it down but he stays in his seat. His usual bright face looks gloomier than usual, dark purple lining the under of his eyes. The bruise is still there, bright and daunting as ever. He looks as strung out as Chanyeol feels.

“I’m sorry.” Baekhyun pulls his legs up so he's crossed legged, he isn't looking Chanyeol in the eye. Instead he picks at the scab Chanyeol knows he has on his ankle.

He's glad Baekhyun can't see him because he's certain every goddamn feeling he's felt for this boy is etched across his face.

“I’m sorry I haven't been around, I’ve been- I had to think about some things.”

Chanyeol hums, he doesn't know if can trust himself to speak right now. He doesn't know what kind of things will roll of his tongue. He doesn’t know if he’s even listening to Baekhyun or just watching the ips move up and down, his head is still pounding.

Baekhyun he looks as if he's crumbling down, not all at once but slowly. Brick by brick. Chanyeol feels as if he’s been demolished for quite sometime.

♡

They sit on the beach, it's dark but he can still see the sand all around and the waves slowly crash against each other.

He doesn't have his book, he left it back at home under his bed. He wish he grabbed it though, the moon looks so much larger than usual- he wants to draw it.

Baekhyun had ripped him from his apartment and dragged him down here without a word. No explanation. Nothing.

They haven't said a word since they got here. It's oddly dissatisfying, he loves Baekhyun's voice and how it makes him feel all light and floaty. He loves a lot of things about Baekhyun.

He loves Baekhyun.

He should tell him. He knows he should tell him but he won't because he's weak and a coward and he's done this before and it ended with a fist to the face.

He doesn't want to fuck up this time. He’d gladly keep his mouth shut, never say a word if it meant he’d get to have Baekhyun, even like this, as long as he can.

He’d do anything to keep Baekhyun like this, well not like this exactly, they’re still not okay et he can feel Baekhyun’s hostility in the air. He should apologize again.

When he looks over, Baekhyun is already looking at him. 

He looks so sad, he looks a like he did that night. It's so painful. It feels like a punch to the gut every time he looks at him, so he turns away.

♡

He finds them at the beach a lot, summer is ending and the weather is waning so Baekhyun vowed he’d spend the rest of it on the sand. Watching him jump around like a puppy is entertaining for Chanyeol to say the least.

It’s cooler than the middle of town, and especially cooler than Chanyeol’s shoebox apartment. He sits alone in the sand and runs his fingers through the grainy sand, Baekhyun had kicked off his shoes and ran towards the water as soon as they reached the threshold of road meets beach. That had been 15 minutes ago and Baekhyun is still kicking around the waves and chucking rocks across the water. Chanyeol watches him dance, he can see him smiling and he can hear his laughter as if he’s right beside him. He rests his chin on his knees and continues to watch him. He doesn’t even realise he’s fallen asleep until a cold, wet hand runs itself across his face, jolting him awake.

Chanyeol sputters, and falls backwards into the sand. Baekhyun’s squeals of laughter clouding around him.

“Wake up!” He hears in between giggles, he feels Baekhyun’s hands grab his own and he’s pulled up to a standing position. Baekhyun’s strength completely strikes him and he slips in the sand, he tries to catch himself but he fails and falls right on top of Baekhyun.

“Ow you big lug get off of me!” Baekhyun shouts, pushing at Chanyeol’s shoulders.

Chanyeol shakes the hair out of his face and looks down at Baekhyun.

His hair is matted to his skin and there are flecks of sand across his face. From this proximity he can see small freckles littering his face, they look like little kisses from the sun. He finds himself staring at the small mole above his lips. His body is shaking again and he feels close to throwing up but he doesn’t want this to end. He looks at Baekhyun in the eye expecting to see disgust or fear but he doesn’t, all he sees is a challenge, like he’s saying do it. Baekhyun lifts his hand, now covered in sand and runs it across Chanyeol’s face again but instead of the roughness from before it’s soft and it caresses his cheekbone, across the bruise that’s no longer there. It's like that night except Baekhyun's not crying but Chanyeol is still scared.

An engine backfiring shakes Chanyeol, he comes to and realises where he is and what he was about to do. He feels the bile raise in his throat and pushes himself off of Baekhyun. Chanyeol paces back and forth while Baekhyun sits up.

He’s too busy inside his own thoughts he doesn't even realize Baekhyun's left until he's halfway across the beach.

“Baekhyun!”

When he turns around he looks completely different from the boy he was just looking at moment ago. He looks jaded, worn out.

“Baekhyun?”

He runs a hand through his hair and across his face. “I’m just. so tired. Of this,” he gestures between them both. “I’m tired of you doing _nothing_.”

He almost looks angry, but behind the tears lining his eyes he knows he's frustrated, with himself, with Chanyeol and with the shitty hand they were dealt in life.

“I’m tired of looking at you and not being able to do anything and I’m tired of you looking at me like I hung the moon and you not doing anything about it. I’m tired of seeing you and not being able to kiss you. I like you, Park Chanyeol.

He’s looking at Chanyeol like he's expecting something. He feels sick, his stomach is in knots, getting tighter with every passing second.

Baekhyun wipes his eyes and scoffs, like he knew this is what he was expecting to happen.

“Yeah. Okay Chanyeol, see you around.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets as he rounds the corner.

It's takes Chanyeol only a few seconds to follow after him and process what the _fuck_ is happening.

He grabs him by the wrist and spins him around. This is exactly what he didn't want to happen. He feels his entire world begin crumbling, he can't speak, his mind reeling at a mile a minute so he does the next best thing.<\p>

He kisses him.

He feels Baekhyun relax under his fingers, his own hands coming up to Chanyeol's shoulders and sliding up his neck.

His grips is strong but his lips are soft against Chanyeol's own. He can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips and Baekhyun’s fingers digging themselves into his skin like he doesn't want to let go. Chanyeol slides his own hands up from Baekhyun’s wrist until he’s holding his face. His cheeks are warm against his cold hands.

He feels Baekhyun smiling into the kiss and can't help but smile too.

A door opens nearby and loud music filters through the streets. Rowdy men shuffle out onto the dirt road and drunkenly barrel towards them.

He pulls away, leaving a respectful distance between them. They men trip past them, too drunk on booze and worn to even notice them.

He feels a wave of relief when they turn the corner leaving them alone on the street once again, but when he sees Baekhyun’s fearful expression he quickly reaches out for his hand.

It still lingers in the air though, the thing they don't want to talk about. The whole reason Chanyeol didn't want to fess up about his feelings in the first place: fear.

“We probably shouldn't do that again-” Chanyeol starts, and Baekhyun pouts, puppy eyes wide.

He sighs and ruffles Baekhyun's hair, “I meant in public. I have many plans that involve kissing you though.”

“Oh do you now?” They continue walking but instead of Chanyeol chasing Baekhyun down, they walk side by side down the street, their arms brushing against each other.

Suddenly his face feels really hot and he turns away from Baekhyun’s wide eyes. He isn't sure where he stands with Baekhyun, or with himself for that matter. Baekhyun likes him, he knows that much he doesn't know if Baekhyun wants him _that way_

“No- I didn't mean it like that, It's just- I’ve never heard you actually say what you're thinking.”

♡

He sits cross legged beside his cot, quilt pulled over his shoulders like a cape and oil lamp flickering from the wind blowing through the holes in his walls. Around him are sheets of loose paper, failed sketches and one not completed. The wind whistles outside but everything is silent. He hears the scratch of his pencil against the paper as he tries something new. He knows how to draw Baekhyun, he’s been doing it for months but nothing ever comes close to the real thing.

Gone are the days when he could just draw something in one sitting and be satisfied with it. Now he’s lucky if he can finish one sketch in one night and not toss it.

There’s a tap on his window, he doesn’t look over. It’s not the first time the kids who live in the alley across the street try to goad him into letting them stay with him. He woke up with a ransacked kitchen.

“Chanyeol. Park Chanyeol.”

This time he does look over and sees a smiling Baekhyun looking back at him. He furrows his brows and shuts his book, sliding it under his cot. He kicks most of the the loose papers under there as well, it’d be best if Baekhyun didn’t see them.

“What are you doing here?” He questions when the window is opened.

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, something Chanyeol finds he does a lot when they’re together. “I wanted to see you? If you don’t want me here I’ll just leave.” He pushes himself up from his crouching position fully intending to hop off the fire escape.

Chanyeol quickly pulls Baekhyun back down from the ledge and pushes himself out onto the fire escape. “Don’t ever do that again. You could hurt yourself and then what? I’m left here with a dead body outside my window. Do you want me to rot in a cell my entire life?”

“Aw Park Chanyeol, that’s so sweet that you think you can live without me. I’m a little hurt that you wouldn’t jump after you found out I was dead.”

“What are you even saying? I love my life right now I would never think of doing such a thing.”

Baekhyun frowns. “Don’t.” Chanyeol feels a lump in his throat and it makes it hard to breathe. “Don’t worry Baekhyun, I won’t leave you alone.”

“Promise me.”

It’s a simple statement, he sticks out his pinky and looks expectantly at Chanyeol.

“Don’t leave.”

It’s the first time that Chanyeol is seeing a different Baekhyun. Not one who steals produce and spends all night out or one who pretends that Chanyeol is the biggest inconvenience to him, but a boy who’s been abandoned his whole life and wants someone, not someone, Chanyeol to promise he’ll always be there for him.

Chanyeol sticks out his pinky and links it with Baekhyun’s.

“I Promise.”

♡

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

They're sprawled out on his bedroom floor, wool blanket and pillows beneath them. Baekhyun lies with his head across Chanyeol's chest. He can feel Baekhyun's his fingers across his collarbones as they dance around his skin, he can feel his breath on his neck. He has one arm behind his head, the other slowly carding its way through Baekhyun's hair.

The dye is fading and the dark roots are unsung their way back but when he asked about re-dying it Baekhyun just waved him off.

“I don't think I’ve ever thought about it.”

Baekhyun hums, like he always does when he doesn't like what someone's had to say.

“I just didn't think I was allowed to want certain things.”

“You’re allowed to want more Park Chanyeol.”

It's Chanyeol's turn to hum in response, like he always does when he doesn't know how to respond.

“What do you want, Chanyeol?”

He wants a lot of things. He wants to be friends with Sehun again, he wants Kyungsoo to stop walking on eggshells when he's around him, he wants Baekhyun to know how he feels, how he really feels. He wants to kiss him, here right now and later too, forever even.

He doesn't answer but settles for tilting Baekhyun's head back to fit his lips against his.

He’s lost count of how many times they've kissed and yet every one is just as wonderful as the last.

He kisses lips and his cheeks and all around his face, small pecks across his eyelids as well.

“I wish we could just live in this moment forever.”

Baekhyun opens his eyes, they're brighter than they just were. He strokes his thumb across Chanyeol’s cheek.

“I’d make it happen if I could.”

Baekhyun smiles sadly, “I know.”

♡

Chanyeol plays with Baekhyun's fingers as they sit across from each other at the diner. It's close to midnight, the shops are all closed and the streets deserted but Chanyeol couldn't stay inside any longer.

“I think I’m going to tell my mom.”

Baekhyun freezes in his hold.

“You're going to what?”

“My mom. I think I want to tell her about me, about us.”

Baekhyun leans in closer, harshly whispering “Are you nuts?”

Chanyeol pulls back, “I thought you'd be happy for me.”

“From what you told me, your mother doesn't seem like the accepting type.”

“You don't know my mother.”

“I don't need to.”

Chanyeol gets up from the booth and gives Baekhyun a weary look before storming out.

Baekhyun just sighs and rests his head in his hands.

“I just don't think it's a good idea.”

♡

Chanyeol stands in front of a small house with chipped bricks and yellowing lawn. The small gnomes that sit in the dying garden have either been destroyed by kids or stolen. He walks up the small concrete steps to face the door. He hasn’t been here in years, just the thought of opening the door makes his stomach churn. He lifts his shaky fists and knocks quietly on the wood, maybe if he’s quiet she won’t hear him and he can leave.

He can’t. He has to do this.

He hears heels click incessantly against the flooring, the door opening with a loud creak.

“Chanyeol!” She gasps and pulls him in tight. Chanyeol knows he should hug her back so he does.

“Hi mother.”

She gives him a bewildered look, for a split second he thinks she's going to hit him but he isn't a kid anymore and she must know that because her hands curl at her sides but don’t move beyond that.

“I didn't come here to fight. I actually wanted to tell you something.”

Chanyeol doesn’t know why she needs to know about this, she hasn't been apart of his life since he was 20 and unsure about himself. Now he’s 23 and still unsure about himself, even more than before but he’s an adult and for some reason he wants his mother to know about a boy. A boy who begged him not to do this. It feels wrong going against Baekhyun it settles in his stomach leaving him full of guilt. He would never endanger Baekhyun, he wants to believe his mother would never do that to him either. He told him he wouldn’t mention his name, and he’ll stay true to his word. This isn’t about Baekhyun, it’s about him.

He feels like a kid again but instead of telling his mom about a crush he has on a girl from school, where she’d smile and pinch his cheeks and tell him to go for it, he’s telling his mother, the woman who never once told him he loved him, about a boy- a man, like him who he thinks he loves except this time he doesn’t get a smile, the most he’ll get is a disownment if his mother's feeling characteristically cruel today.

“I met someone.”

When he was younger he never met a girl he liked, always spending his time between his father and playing around with Sehun and Kyungsoo. He thinks he may have broken his mother's heart. She always looked so sad when he came home from school with the boys instead of a girl from school. She would always ask him to spend less time with Sehun and more time trying to find a special someone, but he was a kid and he didn’t know any better. He wanted to shoot rocks from Kyungsoo’s slingshot and race Sehun down the alleyways. He didn’t want cooties, he blamed them for why he never once liked a girl. But now being older he knows the real reason.“Is that so?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

Chanyeol has to squint but he swears he sees a small twinkle in her eye but it’s gone before he can place it.

He squirms in his seat a bit, he should be used to his mother's hardened gaze but even as an adult it still makes his insides feel like rusted metal.

“Yeah, they’re um,” He coughs “really cool, really different than anyone I’ve ever met before actually.”

His mother sits right beside him, they aren’t touching and he’s glad for it because he thinks if they were he would probably self implode.

“That’s really good Chanyeol. I’m proud of you, I was getting worried for a while there I didn’t think you’d meet _anybody_ in the city all by yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“So, how did you meet him?” He’s confused by her eagerness to know about his new friend but not entirely surprised. He grew up her with needing to know every single detail of his life. He’s sure she still speaks to Sehun and Kyungsoo.

He feels himself smile, “It’s funny actually, I had gotten a paper cut from my jou-” H stops. Everything around him stops. It’s as if a record ends and all you hear is the scratching of the vinyl. “What did you say?”

His mother’s smile falters just a bit but her eyes stay as hardened as ever. “I asked you how you met your new friend.”

“You said him, mom. How did you know it was a him?”

She doesn’t move, or open her mouth. She just sits there black eyes staring back at Chanyeol’s own shaking ones.

His breath is ragged now but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Tell me.”

“Sweetheart don’t be so dramatic, sit down with me.”

“Mom.”

“Chanyeol.” She breathes “are we really going to do this? Right now?”

She waits for a response but only gets Chanyeol blinking confused at her “Okay.” She claps her hands together and grabs Chanyeol’s frigid fingers.

“Mom?”

Her grip is so tight he can see the tips of his fingers turning white, he tries to pull away but she keeps him exactly where she wants.

“You know I’m just looking out for you because I love you right? Everything I do is to protect you.”

Chanyeol isn't sure what's happening. His mother, not in his 22 years of life has never told him she loved him. Whatever she’s doing right now, he can't let it get to him. He knows all her tricks.

He gives her a suspicious look and slowly nods.

“The boy. Baekhyun, I paid him to be your friend.”

Time stops.

“What?” His head is spinning.

“I won't explain myself to you. All I’ll say is I didn't want you hanging out with that queer kid anymore, didn't want it to run off on you, but I guess I was too late.”

He pushes out of his mother's vice like grip and almost runs to the front door.

This can't be happening. This can't be true. His mother lies that's what she does and what she's always done. That's all that's going on it has to be.

“You- you paid some stranger to be my friend because you didn't want me to be queer?”

She nods. He grips the door handle to keep him up steady, his heart plummets.

“Baekhyun- he’s been lying to me this whole time?”

He thinks about the kiss, and the confession and the—

“Fuck-that can't be true, mother please- _please_ tell me it's not true.”

On the last please he hears his voice crack. He drops to his knees, his whole body shaking. He can feel the tears behind his eyes but nothing happens. He just kneels there staring idly at his shaking fingers.

“What is this all, she flicks her wrist gesturing to Chanyeol's broken state. “Oh.” Coming to a realization she smirks.

“Do you really love him?” She asks fighting a small giggle back.

“What?”

She laughs, “I mean, he told me all about your little kiss and how you _look at him like he hung the moon._ It's kind of pathetic Chanyeol- hey, get up stop crying.”

She yanks him up by the wrist, dragging him upwards.

“I won't have a son of mine being a goddamn fairy.”

He raises his hand to her but she doesn't flinch.

He wants to be angry. He wants his blood boiling and body shaking with rage, but it's isn't and he can't be.

He curls his fingers together making a fist and dropping it to his side before turning a punching the patched drywall to the right of him- the same spot he knocked out when he was 17.

He doesn't say anything when he leaves.

♡

Chanyeol sits alone in the dark. His sketchbooks sit before him. The pages scatter the floor, the empty binding sits a few feet away from where he threw it. His fingers are bleeding, paper cuts litter the pads of his fingertips and the crease of his thumb. He can’t feel the sting, everything feels numbed down as if someone turned down the volume of everything around him. He tastes salt on his lips and he knows he's been crying.

There's a tapping coming from the window. He lays down on the hardwood floor and stares at the ceiling.

“Park Chanyeol, I know you're in there I can see you.”

He says nothing and ignores the flash of rage that comes over him when he hears Baekhyun’s voice.

The tapping concedes. It doesn't sound urgent but it does sound annoyed, something Chanyeol is becoming. He sits and grabs the empty moleskin from the ground. He chucks it at the window, disappointed that it doesn't shatter. It bounces off and lands on the ground again. He doesn't look at Baekhyun.

The front door handle jiggles a few times but Chanyeol knows he locked it so he collapses back onto the ground and stares at the shaking door.

“What's your problem?” Baekhyun shouts.

“Go away.” It's the first time he's spoken in a few hours, not including the screaming so his voice cracks awkwardly in the middle.

The door snaps open.

Baekhyun walks in and slams the door behind him as if he owns the place.

“I locked the door.”

“Okay.”

Chanyeol gets up to walk to his bedroom, he doesn't want to see Baekhyun right now because all he’ll see is his mother slapping a ruler against his knuckles because he didn't double bolt the door.

Baekhyun grabs at his arm and tries to stop him from leaving the room, he's stronger than Chanyeol expected because Chanyeol finds himself turned around and slammed against the nearest wall.

“What the fuck is your problem.”

He’s standing right against him. Chanyeol can feel how angry he is, his chest rising up and down against his own. He’s no match for how Chanyeol is feeling.

He pushes Baekhyun away. He falls backwards onto the floor.

“What's my problem? What's your problem? You can't just break into my home Get the fuck out.”

He stalks right over to Baekhyun not afraid to look at him anymore. He sees the hurt in his eyes but he knows it's all an act.

“Chanyeol.”

“Did it feel good? Lying to me? Pretending to be my friend? Pretending you actually cared about me?”

“Chanyeol, what are you talking about?” His voice is shaky.

“Chanyeol, please.”

“Stop lying!” He smacks his fist against the wall.

Baekhyun flinches, tears start to form in his eyes. Chanyeol looks away.

“I know my mom paid you. I know who you are and what you do. I know you lied to me about _everything_ and I know that as soon as the summer was done you were just going to leave.”

They're both crying now. Baekhyun sits still, eyes wide in both disbelief and fear. Chanyeol doesn’t want to look but he forces himself to stare at what he’s doing.

“Was this a game to you?” It’s quieter, more sinister and full of hurt.

“Something to pass the time? Did she pay you extra to like me back or was that just something you did just for kicks?”

Baekhyun gets up quickly, and grabs at Chanyeol’s face. His hands come to rest on his cheeks. He tries to pull away but Baekhyun keeps him in place. There are tears falling from Baekhyun's eyes, it looks so unusual. He’s never seen Baekhyun cry.

There are tears on Chanyeol's face too but they're different. They're hot and full of anger and betrayal. He wants Baekhyun to see them, to see what his selfishness has done but it's so dark he doesn't think he can.

Baekhyun’s hands press harder into his skin, as if he's trying to getting under it.

“Please. Chanyeol. Let me explain.”

He wants to. He wants to hear Baekhyun's side of the story, he wants to know why he did it. He wants to forgive him. He knows he will. So he prys Baekhyun’s fingers from his face and turns away.

“Get ou-”

“I didn’t want you to kiss me.”

Baekhyun’s breaking voice hangs in the air.

“What?”

Baekhyun scrambles back up to his feet, hardening his teary eyes. “I didn’t want you to kiss me! I didn’t want any of this to happen! Don’t you see Chanyeol? I ruin everything I touch, every goddamn thing and I ruined you. I’m sorry. But you,” he presses the tip of his finger into Chanyeol’s chest.

“You fucked everything up! You shouldn’t have kissed me. You should’ve kicked me out, you should've broken my nose. I wanted you to hurt me, to push me away. I wanted you to _hate me_.” His voice starts to falter. “But you didn’t, you couldn’t because you’re too goddamn nice for your own good Park Chanyeol, and too goddamn nice to me.”

Chanyeol doesn’t want to hear this, this isn’t what he wanted when he decided to let Baekhyun go. He wanted Baekhyun to hate him, but not like this. It’s all Baekhyun’s fault, not his. He didn’t lie. All he did was fall in love with the wrong person.

He hears Baekhyun collapse against the floor and his soft choked sobs through the wall. He hums loudly to try and block it out.

Chanyeol screams and punches the door with the side of his fist before falling to his knees. His knees and knuckles throb intensely and the bruises are already forming long the bones but he stays like this, head hanging against the wood, hands shaking by hs sides.

He doesn’t know how long it is until he hears the front door open and shut, he follows the sounds of footsteps down the hallway until all that's left to listen to are his own throat ripping cries.

♡

_Fall, 1935_

The sun is just setting when he gets off work, him and the others around town who managed to scrape a job together. He follows the group of men up the streets, he knows some from down at the docks but some familiar faces pop up once in awhile. They talk of nothing, walking in silence until the block comes to an end and they walk towards the suburbs and Chanyeol towards his own place.

The leaves crunch under his boots as he walks along the dirt road. There a few people along the stretch of buildings but other than that he’s alone.

He can't feel his arms or his legs after he collapses onto his couch, every part of his body aching with over exertion. Splinters litter his hands and fingers, dried blood too over his cracked skin. He should get up and wash his hands make something to eat but he doesn't. He’ll regret it in the morning though when he has to wake up at 5 to go lug boxes down at the docks on an empty stomach.

He glances up at the clock expecting to see the correct time but insteads watches the clock stay stagnant at 5:06. He furrows his brows. He doesn't remember breaking it, or when it would've broken. He takes a gets up and takes it off the wall.

He taps the plastic a few times to see if stops but it doesn't, it keeps ticking like it should.

“Weird…”

He flips it over and finds a piece of paper taped to the back.

_to: chanyeol_

There are small hearts drawn around the lettering. The ink is dried and cracked. He flips the note over.

_“i wish we could live in this moment forever”_

__

__

_i don't know if you'll find this but if you do, if you're reading this, just know i'm sorry and that i didn't mean to hurt you._

_thank you for everything, and i'll stay away but if we see each other again— let's not talk._

_baekhyun_

The plastic cracks against the hardwood floor when the clock falls.

He can't breathe, his whole chest feels tight like it's closing up. He reads it again, and again until he can't tell Baekhyun's tear marks from his own. He slides onto the floor, his head in his heads. His fingers are shaking along with the rest of his body, so much he thinks he might be sick.

_Baekhyun._

It's been two months since he's seen him, two months of heartbreaking agony. He did hate him, for a bit and he hates him right now for doing this to him. He's been trying so hard to get better, to move and he's close but then Baekhyun does something like this and snaps his strings like he always does.

Because that's what Baekhyun does, he plays mind games and he lies and he fucks Chanyeol up.

Chanyeol does that enough to himself already, he doesn't need Baekhyun's help.

But he needs Baekhyun.

Baekhyun who laughs at his jokes and Baekhyun who never stops smiling. Baekhyun who breaks into his apartment at god knows when to fix his clock and leave him this, this, whatever this is.

He doesn't know what it is, because he refuses to believe this is a goodbye letter.

He’s running out the door before he even knows where he's going.

He stops dead in the middle of the street, one shoe off and his jacket hanging off one of his arms.

He doesn't know where Baekhyun lives. Fuck, he doesn't even know if Baekhyun’s still in town. He checks the note again slightly hoping he left him a code or a clue to go off but maybe Baekhyun really is saying goodbye and doesn't want Chanyeol to find him.

“He thinks you never want to see him again” he reminds himself.

Sometimes he wishes he could just shut up.

♡

He finds himself on Kyungsoo’s front porch, dry heaving over the side of the fence.

“Chanyeol?”

He’s by Kyungsoo’s side in seconds, leaving him dizzy.

“Kyungsoo. Baekhyun. He”

Kyungsoo grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him down until his sitting on the cool concrete. “What are you doing- Did you run here?”

Chanyeol nods with his head between his knees fighting to stay conscious.

“That's like three miles Chanyeol!” He screeches and goes to hit Chanyeol on the head but stops when he remembers Chanyeol is seconds from death.

He sighs and ushers for Chanyeol to follow him, “Come on you idiot.”

♡

“I'm not helping you Chanyeol. You hurt him- bad. I've never seen him that fucked up.”

“Kyungsoo, you don't even know him.”

“No, Chanyeol. You don't even know him. Do you know he quit his little day job with your mother the second he realized what he was feeling, did you know he was trying to tell you at that stupid fucking party? No. I didn't think so.

“What?”

“You're so goddamn dense all the time, you never look at anybody except yourself. If you just looked at Baekhyun, really looked at him you'd see his feelings for you all across his face.”

“He what?”

“Oh lord. Okay, Chanyeol you had the right to get mad, he lied to you it's understandable but you didn't even listen to his side, you kicked him out of your life without even considering it.”

Chanyeols clothes feel too tight too soon, he drops his head between his knees, everything is happening to fast.

“Where is he?”

“No.”

“Kyungsoo.” he whines.

“Chanyeol.”

“Why are you protecting him? I know you know where he is.”

“Chanyeol!”

“Kyungsoo!”

“Have you entertained the idea that he took the quickest train out of here once you told him to leave?”

“Y- well no. No I haven't but he couldn't have just left, he wouldn't. Right?”

Chanyeol feels his heart in his stomach. Sure, he was awful to Baekhyun crude and unforgiving but he wouldn't just leave. He looks down at the matted red rug beneath his feet, some spots are faded pink.

Kyungsoo sighs again. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but you need to promise me something.”

“What? Really?”

Kyungsoo slides a small piece of paper over to him but stays quiet for a moment.

“Just- just promise me you’ll be careful. Okay? I don't want to see anything.. you know. Happen to you.”

Chanyeol jumps up and gives him a light peck on the cheek, for a second he thinks he's gone too far but Kyungsoo just gives him the finger and tells him to fuck off, tinge of pink peppering his cheeks.

♡

He crumpled the small slip of paper against his sweaty palms. The ink is slightly smeared, but after years of reading Kyungsoo's illegible printing he finds himself in front of a familiar building.

It's an older building, one with more character than regular customers, but it still gives Chanyeol goosebumps when he walks up to it, even after 5 years.

He was 17 when he ran away from home for just one night. It was short lived and long winded but to this day Chanyeol believes it was the best choice he ever made.

He didn't do much at all, just sat at one of many empty booths and listened to the small jazz musicians play. He told Kyungsoo about it once when they were 19, he told him about the booze and the music and the way people loved life. It burned inside him, the want, the need to feel like he did that night.

He feels it now, at 22 years of age standing in front of the place that made him, _him_. He's slightly taller and slightly more scared than he was all those years ago but for once, he’s going to get what he wants.

Inside it's still the same, he can see the chipped wooden tables and the peeling leather booths through the muggy window. He can see an elderly couple sipping coffee across the room, they're chatting softly although Chanyeol can see there's no one else around except for the pink-haired server currently refilling their cups.

Chanyeol can feel his heartbeat in his fingers like he always does when he sees Baekhyun, he looks the same as he always does, bright eyed and smiling. His hair is more pink than it was when he last saw him, a darker colour than before. It looks good.

Maybe he shouldn't be here, maybe Baekhyun really doesn't want to see him and this is for the best. As selfish as he is he doesn't want it to be, he doesn't want to be alone anymore he wants Baekhyun beside him- even if it's just as a friend. Maybe Baekhyun’s really moved on.

He wants to know why Baekhyun's here if all places, a place that's so apart of Chanyeol’s being, but it's so fitting that he is.

He pushes the door open, the small bell at the top dings loudly and Baekhyun looks up.

His smile fades and the coffee pot slips from his fingers.

They stand there, across the room from one another, staring.

Chanyeol is paralyzed, he can't will himself to move an inch. Baekhyun seems to have the same problem, his eyes twitch from Chanyeol to the door incessantly until the kitchen door swings open.

A heavy irish accent crashes into the room “What in the ever loving- Baekhyun! Clean up that goddamn mess I ain't paying you to gawk at the customers like an idiot.”

Baekhyun jolts backwards almost slipping on the spilt coffee. His smile makes it way back onto his face and he’s quickly apologising to the couple in seconds as if the last minute or so never happened.

He didn't prepare for this, he ignorantly expected Baekhyun to gleefully take him back but clearly he was way off.

He slides into a nearby booth and watches as Baekhyun negrudently drags himself over to his table.

“Hello sir, what can I get you today?” he asks with a smile, one that doesn't reach his eyes.

Chanyeol scratches the small scab on his wrist. “Baekhyun-”

“Sorry,” he checks the nonexistent watch on his wrist “looks like it's time for my break. I’ll send another staff over to take your order.”

Chanyeol glances around the room, it's deserted save for the couple and the cook.

“Baekhyun, if I could just-”

Baekhyun snatches his by the wrist, catching him off guard and pulls him from the booth the back exit across the room.

The metal door bangs shut as Baekhyun pushes Chanyeol through.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

He scrambles for the small paper in his back pocket “I wanted to see you.” He holds up the crumpled page.

Baekhyun's eyes widen in surprise and he reaches out to take it from Chanyeol's shaking fingers but he stops himself.

“I don't want to see you- I didn't- I need you to leave.”

He doesn't look angry, his eyes are wide and watery but he's doesn't look angry. He looks scared.

“But-”

“Chanyeol. I don't know why you're here and I don't know what you want from me.”

“What I want- Baekhyun I want you, why can't you let me talk for one goddamn second.”

Baekhyun laughs, it's an ugly laugh, one that makes Chanyeol's stomach ache.

“You made it pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with me a few months ago.”

“You made me say those things- you lied to me, I didn't know what to do. Do you know how fucking scared I was this entire summer, how scared I still am?”

Baekhyun pushes him further into the alley, away from the main street.

“Listen here Park Chanyeol. I did nothing to make you lash out at me like you did. I lied, yes I can acknowledge it I was wrong and I hurt you and I'm sorry but,” His voice cracks.

“I didn't lie about how I felt, I- fuck. I'm not talking about this anymore, you can't do this Chanyeol- you can't just show up out of thin air two months after you told me you never wanted to see me again. Leave.”

Baekhyun turns to go back inside and Chanyeol can feel his heart plummeting. It wasn't supposed to go like this, he has to have him back he needs to explain.

He reaches ahead of Baekhyun and slams the door shut before he can leave.

“Baekhyun. I need you to stop being so goddamn stubborn and listen to me.”

“Fuck off Chanyeol, whatever this is whatever happened is done I don't want anything to do with you, and you shouldn't want anything to do with me.”

Chanyeol sighs and rests his head above Baekhyun's on the door.

“I don't know why you think I couldn't want you, you _know_ how I feel you spent 3 months actively ignoring it. I don't hate you like I know you want me to. I tried to, i did but i couldn't. Do you know why?”

“Because you're too fucking nice that's why.”

“Because I love you.”

Baekhyun looks up at him quickly, eyes searching his face for something.

“Chanyeol that isn't funny-”

“I'm not joking Baekhyun.”

He places his hands on Baekhyun's shoulder.

“I'm in love with you Byun Baekhyun, I know it's stupid and dangerous and I'll probably be carted off to the police station any second but I don't care. I want you so bad it hurt Baekhyun. I love you and I'm sorry.”

Baekhyun slithers his way out of Chanyeol’s grasps and paces his way back and forth across the filthy alleyway. His fingers dig their way into his hair.

“You should hate me. _I_ hate me for what I did, I don't get it.”

“Kyungsoo- he told me what really happened, that you tried to tell me, that you basically told my mom to fuck off after you realized your feelings.”

Baekhyun chokes back a sob but it doesn't stop the tears from falling.

“I'm sorry, I-” he wipes aggressively at his cheeks and eyes to dry the tears. Chanyeol lifts his hand to help. He sees something in Baekhyun's eyes he can't decipher, it makes him feel queasy.

“You don't have to feel the same way, I just. I needed to tell you.”

Baekhyun grabs Chanyeol by the face and kisses him.

“I love you Park Chanyeol and I will spend every waking second proving it to you.”

He's kissed Baekhyun before, countless times but hearing those words being whispered into his lips makes him feel all kinds of wonderful.

Back in the restaurant after the doors are closed Chanyeol and Baekhyun sit on the floor behind the bar. 

Baekhyun grabs Chanyeol by the hand and plays with his fingers, his small fingers now slightly callused by work feel different against Chanyeol’s skin. 

“People are going to talk, they're going to spread rumours.” he says like he's pretending it doesn't bother him when it does.

Chanyeol scoffs “Let them talk. I don't care.”

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows“Oh wow, got a tough guy over here.”

“I’m just tired of other people running my life, I want to be with you that's it. If people want to talk about us let them, they don't know a thing.”

“Are we going to be okay?”

Chanyeol doesn't know a single thing except that he would do anything to keep Baekhyun with him like this.

“Yeah Baek, we’ll be okay.” 

Baekhyun tilts his head up and kisses him like he believes him. That's all he needs.


End file.
